


Pariah

by darlathecyborgpluviophile



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Disabled Character, Established Relationship, FFXV Minibang 2019, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Multi, Nightmares, OT4, PTSD, Polyship Roadtrip, Touch Aversion, White Magic, World of Ruin, healer!ignis, promnis heavy, self blame, self hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-25 03:13:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22089088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlathecyborgpluviophile/pseuds/darlathecyborgpluviophile
Summary: “Iggy!” someone’s shouting, maybe two people, and somehow through the pain he hears Prompto and Gladio sliding in to rescue him and Noct. The phantom pain in his hands and face hasn’t let up, and he can’t hear Noctis’s little distresses anymore, and he’s making it worse, he’s just making it worse…“Holy shit,” Gladio says, “he’s making it better.”
Relationships: Gladiolus Amicitia/Ignis Scientia, Gladiolus Amicitia/Prompto Argentum/Ignis Scientia, Prompto Argentum/Ignis Scientia
Comments: 15
Kudos: 146
Collections: FFXV Minibang 2019





	Pariah

Ignis is only nine years old when he glimpses an inkling of his future responsibility.

He’s already gone to bed later than he originally planned because of the homework given to him by his in-Citadel tutor, an assignment that he hopes will teach him both how to be a good student and a good teacher, when Noctis needs it. He falls back into the pillows of his tiny twin-sized bed, rests his glasses on the bedside table, and drifts off to sleep with a hand to his forehead, where he’ll grow deep worry lines in the years to come.

He’s awoken, three hours later, by the sound of his bedroom door opening. At first, he thinks it’s part of his dreams—he makes himself comfortable again, turning onto his side, and exhales stress onto his pillow.

He opens his eyes for the briefest of seconds to find Noct at his bedside, wide-eyed and scared, like he’s expecting punishment and praying to the Astrals that it won’t be as bad as he expects.

Ignis blinks, and rummages around his bedside table for the previously removed glasses.

“Noct, I—what’re you doing?”

He finds the glasses a moment later, slips them onto his face, and sits up a bit more. From this vantage, he can see his door slightly ajar, the soft nighttime light of the Citadel’s hallway sneaking in.

Noct shifts uncomfortably in his spot, transferring his weight from foot to foot. He wrings the arm of a stuffed moogle toy. He sniffles.

“Bad…night…” is all he says. As Ignis’s eyes adjust to the darkness and the feeling of wearing his glasses again, he starts to see the red rimmed around his charge’s eyes.

“You had another nightmare?” he asks, rubbing his hand down his face, voice rough with tiredness. Noctis flinches back.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and when Ignis hears his response echoed in his head again, he realizes how harsh it came out.

“Noct,” he replies, swinging his legs around and over the edge of the bed. His toes barely brush against the floor. “I apologize. I’m not angry with you, I promise.”

Noctis closes his eyes, and his face melts in that way it does when he’s about to sob.

“Noct,” Ignis repeats, and puts a hand to the boy’s chubby cheek. “It’s alright. You don’t have to cry.”

His skin is warm against Ignis’s, and like magic, Noctis doesn’t cry. He only sniffles again.

They stay like that for a time, the action broken only when Ignis moves his other hand into Noctis’s hair.

“Did you want to go for a walk to the kitchens? Or did you want to sleep again?”

Noct breathes. “I wish I could sleep.”

“I know you do,” Ignis responds, softer than anything. He sighs. “Would you like to sleep with me tonight?”

Noct opens his eyes, big and blue, watery like Altissia.

Ignis suddenly remembers that he won’t be able to see those eyes ever again.

He pulls himself from the comforting memory as soon as the thought occurs to him. Jerking awake from a light doze, his head lifts off from his shoulder but his vision remains ever dark. He _can_ blink—tries it with his single functional eyelid, and still the world remains a haze of black, and gray, where the window shines in to their train compartment.

It’s morning, then.

Another morning of listening to Noctis snore for far too long because no one wants to wake him up. Of hearing Prompto’s anxiety-induced rambling, a cheap compensation for their lost camaraderie. Of Gladio, off gods-know-where because he just can’t bear to be around everyone else.

Ignis, long since established as the early riser of the group, is starting to hate daytime.

*

The malboro is everywhere, all at once. 

The smell and the noise are suffocating, causing the open, echoey cavern they’re exploring to feel small and enclosed. The walls of Ignis’s world are burning down further, and when he imagines the flames, they’re a chilling purple.

Noctis is yelling before Ignis registers it, the sound arcing across the swamp and toward where he hides in an alcove of jagged rock and gnarled tree root. There’s a splash and a sickening thud—not two yards to his left, he estimates—then another groan that sound turns into a rough yell, hoarse and torn at the edges. Noct hacks out a wet cough, badly injured.

Every nerve in Ignis’s body alights as he hears Noct’s whimpers and coughs, putting him back in the mindset of the half-dream, half-memory from just that morning. He can picture with precision those stormy blue eyes clouded over in pain and fear. Every part of him screams _go_.

Crawling through the swampland and rock is no easy task, but Ignis puts everything he has into it, following the sounds of Noct’s pain.

“Noct,” he says, and they’re so far removed from the din of Gladio and Prompto’s fight that he doesn’t even have to shout it. He splashes around aimlessly, not finding him. “Noct, are you alive?”

At first there’s nothing, and Ignis is overwhelmed with the urge to scream in frustration, until he catches wind of a weak, wet cough to his immediate behind. He backtracks until he bumps into something much softer than the rest of the cave.

He finds Noct’s arms immediately, then his hand, and clasps it in his own.

“Noct. Noct!”

Noctis’s breathing is raspy, but thank the Gods, he’s still managing it.

“Specs,” he rasps, then dissolves into wet coughs. “Spec—potion. Please.”

Ignis reaches out his free hand, feeling around in the Armiger for a curative, and coming up short.

“Noct –” He starts, but the words get stuck halfway.

 _If only you had been there,_ his thoughts scream, _if only you were there, if only you could fight, if you weren’t so godsdamned useless—_

Ignis uses Noct’s arm as a trail up to his body, searching for the largest of his wounds. He finds it in his middle, a shallow but flowing cut just under the right side of his ribcage.

“Specs?” Noctis is whispering, now, sounding like a ghost of himself.

Not knowing what else to do, Ignis _pushes_ on the slippery wound in an attempt to stem the blood. Noctis uses what’s left of his voice to yell in pain, and both Prompto and Gladio call his name from the fray.

Ignis growls under his breath.

_Do something, do something, do something, do something, do something, I beg of you—_

His hands are suddenly a live wire, so hot they feels _cold_ , feeling far too much like the Ring has made its way back on his finger. Suddenly, Ignis is the one crying out in pain, and fuck it all, the last thing he needs right now is a flashback to the stupidest decision he ever made—

“Iggy!” someone’s shouting, maybe two people, and somehow through the pain he hears Prompto and Gladio sliding in to rescue him and Noct. The phantom pain in his hands and face hasn’t let up, and he can’t hear Noctis’s little distresses anymore, and he’s making it _worse_ , he’s just making it worse…

“Holy shit,” Gladio says, “he’s making it _better_.”

Ignis swivels his head helplessly. “He’s dying,” he starts, voice choked, “we’re out of curatives, and I can’t –”

“No, Iggy, shit, you’re _healing_ him.”

Ignis grits his teeth, trying not to get lost in the memories that the pain brings back.

_“What?”_

The next beat, his burning hands are touching nothing. He can feel an unnatural coolness in the air, customary of passing through the warp-ghosts Noctis leaves behind.

If he tilts his head down, facing where his hands must be, there’s a bright gray centered in the dark. Even if he can’t actually see the light, it hurts his head, and he has to look away.

Someone summons something—Ignis hears the tinkling of the Armiger.

“Get back to the fight,” Prompto says, sounding more mature than he ever has in his life, “I’ll guard Iggy. Try and get over here if someone needs healing, I’ll cover you.”

There’s a splashing as Gladio stomp-runs away. The pain in Ignis’s hands reduces to a painful pricking as feeling floods back in, then, nothing.

The fight is over in minutes.

*

Maneuvering around the train compartment only by touch, Ignis finds Gladio’s bunk. He grasps around, stumbles across his pantleg, and tugs.

“W-wuh? Iggy. Are you – “

“I need your help with something.”

The only place they can go to be alone at this hour is the train’s nearest bathroom. If there had been anyone watching – and there might have been, neither were paying much attention – they would have thought that the two men were stumbling into the bathroom in the middle of the night to fuck.

The sounds being made would not have dissuaded that thought either.

“A-ah – _fuck_ , fuck…”

“Iggy, calm down. Don’t strain yourself.”

No longer distracted by the heat of battle, his white magic feels like the iciest of needles being slowly pressed into his hands. It’s everything he can not to scream, sheer bloody-mindedness the only thing muffling the sounds of his pain.

Gladio’s hand is an anchor, a warm, grounding presence on his shoulder. He’s there in case anything goes wrong, and to think Ignis almost didn’t bring him –

Okay. Okay. He has to do this. This _has_ to work.

Shaking like a tree limb in a storm, Ignis brings a magic-wreathed hand up to the worst of his eyes. He starts with light, feather-like touches around the star-shaped scar, and feels nothing but the cold of his fingerpads.

He traces the scar, pets his crusty, sealed eyelid until the pain overwhelms him and he’s smacking at his own face, clawing desperately at the place where he used to see.

“Iggy, stop. Ignis. Ignis!”

Gladio reaches into the flames and grasps his hands. The magic goes out at once.

“It’s not working.”

There’s a sharp reply poised right on the tip of Ignis’s tongue – _you don’t think I fucking know that_ – but before he can loose it he trips over his own words, fails, and starts to sob.

He lets himself be held, Gladio’s arms wrapped tightly around his lean, shivering frame, warmer than he’s been since Altissia.

*

Ignis has to heal Noctis again not five days later.

It’s a miracle he doesn’t have a concussion, but there’s still a lump where the butt of Prompto’s gun hit him. He’s covered in scratches and cuts from the ordeal at the top of the train, not to mention minor burns here and there from where the flames of crashing dropships licked at his skin.

The chill builds up in Ignis’s hands, a tingling and then a cold burn and then a bright gray enveloping his vision in place of the dark he’s grown used to. One by one he finds and taps each of Noct’s minor injuries, the latter hissing quietly as the worse ones smooth out into his imagined landscape of pale skin.

Noctis hasn’t said anything since the phone call, and he’s still refusing now.

“We had to leave him,” Ignis reiterates, as soft as he can manage.

“You don’t think I know that?” Noct grinds out.

“I just want you to believe me.”

“The next stop is Tenebrae, right? Maybe when we drop off the refugees, we can backtrack. Y’know. How far is it from there to the depot we were at, anyway?”

Ignis shakes his head.

“Noctis.”

“There has to be a way. Specs, we can’t just leave him – ”

“Prompto is a strong man, he can find a way to contact us or make his way back – ”

“Yeah, and what about Ardyn? That fucker clearly targeted _him_ , okay, and now Prom’s separated from the rest of us so we can’t fucking get to him if something happens like that bastard clearly – ”

“Noctis, I cannot heal you and argue at the same time!”

He can’t tell what it must look like, but he feels it clear as anything – an aching hollowness, an exhaustion like he’s never known carving up his insides, leaving him with nothing. Nothing in his head, nothing in his body – the strain required to keep up the healing magic has him feeling like his very soul has left him.

His chest heaves. If he could see, he knows the room would be spinning. He starts to careen backwards to the floor of the train compartment when Noctis grabs tight hold of his hands, pulling him back up.

“Fuck,” Noct mutters, then shouts, “Gladio! I think he’s in stasis!” before Ignis finally blacks out.

When he wakes, it turns out that he has a magic eerily similar to Noct’s flowing through his veins.

Noctis tries to explain how to cope with raw magic and prevent stasis in stumbling splinters and fragments. He sounds awkward and uncertain and terrified, and like he’s been crying a lot since Ignis passed out.

Honestly, Ignis relates.

His hands begin to thaw in Noct’s.

*

He keeps _tripping_.

This is why the First Secretary gave him the bloody cane, wasn’t it? So he could avoid obstacles? Stop running into things? At least fucking _attempt_ to regain self-sufficiency?

Gladio ends up holding his elbow through the worst of Zegnautus’s rubble. Ignis gently shakes him off once they get a wider room, and immediately a pang of hurt ricochets through his ribcage – he misses Prompto’s non-condescending guidance suddenly and fiercely.

 _“I wouldn’t tarry too long here,”_ comes Ardyn’s voice from all walls of the Keep. _“Wouldn’t want to keep your Prince and his little pet waiting. The horrors they might be enduring at this very moment…”_

Ignis goes completely still for a fraction of a second, gripping his cane. He traces the carvings in the handle with a thumb, trying not to think about wind whipping through his hair, wet patches on his shirt, the sound of the ocean.

He may not be able to do anything now, but he will if– no, _when_ , when they find them.

*

When they do find Noctis, he sounds seconds away from exploding in anger. Dark, celestial magic emanates off of him, and his eyes are no doubt glowing purple, though of course the Gods are nowhere to be found. He tears his way through the rest of the Keep, ripping the life out of any creature they come across like the magic isn’t killing him with every step he takes.

Ignis knows the toll of that Ring. He tries to convince Noctis to rest, to no avail. It’s only when they find Prompto, suspended by a mechanical device in a wide, foul-smelling cell, does Noctis agree to stopping at one of the dormitories they passed along the way.

When the automatic doors hiss shut behind them, they all go to their separate corners. Prompto’s shuffling footsteps drift to the far end of the room, as far from human contact as possible; Noct sets to work blessing the energy drinks they stocked up on from a vending machine on the way, muttering curses for every failed start and small mistake that arises; and Gladio lingers by the doors, still so close to Ignis that he can feel his body heat.

Ignis takes stock. Gladio’s already been healed several times during this waking nightmare, and the thing Noctis needs most right now is a spot of decent rest. The only person who’s in any need of serious healing is Prompto.

He glides to the back of the room.

“Your injuries?” he offers, trying to sound gentle. He hears Prompto audibly gulp.

“I’m fine.”

“Gladio?” Ignis asks, tilting his head back a bit.

“Blondie’s lying,” he answers.

“Fuck,” Prompto mutters under his breath.

“Come.” Ignis outstretches his free arm. “Will you guide me to the nearest bed?”

He hears Prompto start to protest before sighing, and gently touching his elbow.

The mattress Ignis lands on gives an ear-piercing squeal as he sits, then another as Prompto settles beside him. Ignis reaches out to take Prompto’s hands – and pats at empty air, like a dumbass.

“I’m going to need you to get closer if you want to be healed.”

“Sorry,” Prompto stutters immediately. “It’s just – ” His voice cracks, and he tries again. “It’s just hard. I’m sorry.”

A wave of guilt washes through Ignis, followed by fear for what he’s going to find imprinted into Prompto’s skin, then finally, resolve.

“Would you tell me where it hurts?”

“Iggy…you really don’t have to – ”

“I want to. If it needs reiterating, you are a Crown Citizen and you are my friend. Where does it hurt?”

He can just picture Prompto’s eyes darting everywhere but him. There’s an uncomfortable groan, and then trembling hands tentatively meet his.

“Wrists,” he mumbles.

Sure enough, when Ignis trails the pads of his fingers down past Prompto’s hands, he feels it – sunken, swollen imprints in both his wrists. And then on one, curiously enough, a set of smooth raised lines –

“Ah,” Ignis starts. “Is that…?”

“Yeah. It’s the – the barcode.”

Ignis has never once heard Prompto sound this small. He almost tightens his grip on Prompto’s wrists, an attempt to ground both of them – but remembers the circumstances, and relents.

“I see,” is all he says, and sets to work.

The cold clamminess of Prompto’s hands is nothing compared to the icy rush that builds up in his chest and flows down into the tips of his fingers. With every irritation he finds in Prompto’s wrists, he traces it with a magic-haloed finger and the skin smooths out again, returning to normal. When the last traces of the metal cuffs are abolished, Ignis searches for something else to heal. For a brief moment, he lingers on the barcode – he can feel jagged, uneven lines around the uniform ones, but those injuries are old, and already healed over. He almost mentions it to Prompto, but ultimately decides not to.

His chest is starting to feel heavy, and breathing is difficult.

Still, Ignis shifts closer, and trails his hands higher up Prompto’s arms. He unexpectedly bumps into something slightly sticky, and Prompto jerks away completely.

“No!” he yelps, clearly involuntary.

The white magic stirs within Ignis, agitated by the sudden reaction. His heart _hurts_ , pounding painfully like it does on the rare occasion he has too much Ebony.

“Prompto – “

“I’m sorry, it’s just – “

“I _need_ to heal you. I need to heal _something_.”

“Not me. I’m sorry. I can’t.”

The cot shrieks again as Prompto stands, scurrying away.

“I’m fine with a potion. It’s no biggie.” Then, like the afterthought it almost certainly is: “You’ve – you’ve done enough, okay? You should totally get some rest.”

Ignis burns under the weight of his magic as Prompto crushes one of the freshly made potions against himself.

He swallows his protests. “Of course,” he mutters, shaking the cold away from his hands.

*

Noctis is gone again.

For now, they’ve resolved to wait with the Crystal – Gladio and Prompto are still hoping he’ll pop back out. Ignis knows better, but there still might be some guidance from the Gods yet to come, and Ardyn isn’t anywhere near.

 _Insomnia,_ Ignis thinks as he rewraps potion-soaked bandages around Gladio’s wet, bleeding palms. _He’s most likely taken the Citadel by now._ He files that thought away for future reference.

Gladio hasn’t said anything since Ardyn left. There was, however, a roar of pain and grief as he sliced his palms open clawing at the Crystal; he wants to believe that hoarseness is the reason Gladio hasn’t been speaking these last several hours. Ignis had tried to heal the wounds on his own, but as with his eyes, it seems that damage from a divine source is beyond the scope of his healing abilities.

A silvery shade permeates and pulses through his darkness. The Crystal looks on, shedding silent light.

Further down the catwalk, Prompto paces and fidgets. Approximately every five minutes Ignis hears the crystalline shatter of his gun being pulled from the Armiger, then metallic clicking as he inspects the trigger, the barrel, the chambers, and puts it back together again just to banish it.

And every time Ignis drifts away from the noises in his surrounding area and the coping mechanisms of his companions, he thinks about a white dog, a throne room in tatters, blood sparkling in the sunlight.

There’s no point to any of this. No point in staying here, no point in waiting for the Crystal to give up something it has no intention of returning. There’s no point in this _useless_ magic he has, a reminder of everything he has lost and will only continue to lose. If the Night doesn’t kill them, the daemons will, and if the daemons don’t, there’s always time. The white magic really only prolongs the suffering.

No one’s phone has been charged since the last time they were in a dormitory. Ignis has been utterly responsible, putting the device in airplane mode and disabling automatic brightening. According to the screen reader, he has fifty percent battery remaining. The only thing he’s using it for is to time how long they’ve waited. As of right now, they’ve been on the catwalk for six hours.

They cannot leave without working phones. Gods only know what’s out there in the ruins of Niflheim, but with any luck, they might be able to salvage a wifi signal, and send a distress call back to Lucis.

It’s the start of a plan. Now, the only obstacle is convincing the other two to leave.

For the first time in his life, Ignis’s fingers _itch_. He wishes he had something to fidget with, something less important than his phone.

He has the screen reader tell him the time. The robotic voice echoes around the gaping, cavernous room. He thinks again about Pryna, and imagines telling the truth. Specifically, he imagines the hope draining from Prompto’s eyes, and the sound of Gladio trying to haul the Crystal off the edge of the catwalk and into the depths of the Keep below.

Ignis stays silent for another two hours – until daemons rush up the walls of the room, and don’t stop coming.

*

The nightmare starts as it normally does – Ignis’s cheek pressed against the sandswept stone of the Hydraean’s altar, metal gauntlets clutching at his sweaty hair, his shirt, his pantlegs. Ahead of him, it’s not a man holding a dagger above Noct’s heart, but a thick, writhing black shadow that shimmers in the salt spray.

He remembers Luna and her fate, and how perhaps she might have been the only one able to cure the creature ahead of him. Then he remembers something else, too – the Ring.

As soon as he remembers he’s standing again, free from the MTs, and the cold little thing is in his hand, glowing eerily. Words escape his mouth, some monologue, he’s not paying attention – and then –

Time slows, and stops. Ignis is left half-crouched over, out of breath, expecting the fire to start any moment.

When he dares to look up, the skies of Altissia are a foreboding and dark purple, the shade that he tends to favor in his clothing. His surroundings are muddled, as if a fog has descended around the altar. He can just see Luna, pure white with red splattered across her front, and Noct, black clothing sticking out in the haze. The shadow is nowhere to be found.

The Ring on his finger grows freezing, and he hisses in pain. The stone in the center glows brighter, beaming up into the clouds.

A Voice, many Voices, boom like thunder.

_“He is not worthy.”_

“You have not known him in your lifetimes,” comes another, familiar and regal, but pleading. “He is stalwart, and true, and he loves the Chosen King with all his soul.”

 _“Love is a fickle thing,”_ the Voices bite back, _“love proves nothing. Love will keep the King from Providence. The unworthy must die.”_

The flames start down Ignis’s ring finger this time, exploding out of the metal and treading painfully up his arm. The sleeves of his shirt curl and blacken, turning to ash. He drops to one knee, focusing all his attention in staying at least upright.

“Please! Do not take more from my son.” Ignis doesn’t think he’s ever heard Regis sound this distressed. “He has suffered enough, and will continue to suffer until the day he must die. Please, let him keep his advisor, and his friend. I beg of you, as a King of Lucis, worthy just as much as the rest of you.”

_“Very well.”_

The flames stop advancing, burning curiously in place. The skies are silent for a moment.

_“But we will do with him what we please…”_

Cold settles in his chest, and Ignis’s vision burns away like a match to paper.

*

When he jerks awake, the cheap cot is the only location marker that Ignis can go by.

This must all have been a dream, then. He’s back in Zegnautus, they’re all still back in Zegnautus, and his sick mind has only conjured up sensations of a haunted Prompto, daemon Ravus, Noct’s absence –

“I-Iggy! You’re awake!”

The legs of a metal chair scrape against a metal floor, and Prompto is bounding over to his bedside.

“Gods, Gladio and I thought we might’ve lost you – “

“Noctis,” is the first thing Ignis croaks out. “Where is Noctis?”

Ignis doesn’t need to see to know how quickly Prompto deflates.

“Crystal,” he says, and laughs this hoarse, awful laugh.

It wasn’t a nightmare, then.

“Are we still in the Keep?” he tries to sit up, and Prompto swoops in immediately to lay hands on his shoulder and chest.

“Easy there. This is Aranea’s ship, the Falcon. She found us pretty beat and fending off daemons. Haha, now I owe her another favor…”

Ignis’s brain skips over Prompto’s waterfall rambling and lands squarely in problem-solving mode. He should most definitely thank Aranea for their rescue, and he adds it to his perpetual list of things to attend to. Noctis – he can’t do anything about Noctis, and steers away from the topic altogether. Gladio was mentioned, he needs to take a look at his hands, see if the bandages need changing, and Prompto –

He shrugs him off, and Ignis hears him scuffle away a little bit.

“Have you been here this whole time? When did you last sleep?”

“Yeah! And of course I slept!”

He’s lying, but there isn’t a point in arguing the case further right now.

“Gladio.” Ignis tries to sit up, winces as a sudden, terrible headache sends him reeling, and repeats himself. “Gladio. His hands. Are they – “

“Getting better all the time. The bandages are even off now - don’t worry, seriously. ‘Nea and I have been working double time to make sure you guys have been taken care of.”

If he and Aranea are as close as evidence would suggest, perhaps he can have her bully Prompto into some rest when he speaks with her.

“May I see him?”

Prompto’s nervous energy goes south once again. “I…don’t think…he really wants to see anyone right now.”

“Where is he?”

“Spending most of his time in the canteen.”

“He’s been taking care of himself about as well as you have, I imagine,” Ignis snaps. It’s unnecessary, but his chest heaves with fear and self-righteousness – the vindictive burn he feels from being _right_ only fuels his self-hatred.

“I’m sorry,” Prompto mumbles, and the little voice in the back of Ignis’ head crows _see? you can’t take care of him, you can’t even be nice to him for two seconds. you cannot heal him or gladio or noct and you cannot fix_ any _of this_.

“Just…take me to Aranea, please.”

Prompto keeps a gentle, lightly bandaged hand on Ignis’ shoulder as they walk and it’s more than he deserves. Maybe that’s why he hates it so much - Prompto fell off a train, went through unspoken hells, unspoken _tortures_ to get here, and now he’s forced to care for crotchety, blind, useless him of all people. But he does, and he does it well. Ignis resists the urge to shrug him off after everything because the man deserves to feel like he’s winning, for once.

They reach the cockpit and Aranea’s powerful, sarcastic voice greets them:

“Hey, the man of the hour.” The click of her heels is deafening against the metal floor as she walks over and slaps a hand across Ignis’ free shoulder. “You’re alive. How’re you holding up?”

“How long was I out?”

“Eh, little under a day. With how things’ve been around here lately, I’ve seen longer.”

Ignis brings a hand to the frown lines in his forehead. “Wait. Man of the hour?”

“Uh…” Prompto begins, backing away slightly. Ignis literally _hears_ Aranea smile.

“Listen, I’ve saved your bacon way too many times to count. It’s fun saving your pretty little asses over and over, not gonna lie, but at this point I’ll drive myself bankrupt trying to pull you out of ridiculously dangerous situations.”

“What did you do?” Ignis asks towards Prompto.

“Heard something about there being a white mage in your party? Apparently, you’ve somehow been blessed with the lost power of the Oracle.”

Before, this would be the point in the conversation where Ignis would reach up to clean his glasses to stop himself from nearly murdering someone. Instead, he just clenches his cane.

“Ah. That is indeed one way you could describe the situation.”

“We have to take a stop near Tenebrae to refuel again, anyway. While we’re there, I’m counting on you to take a look at some of my men and their refugees.”

“I don’t suppose I have a choice.”

“You really don’t, bud,” Prompto laughs nervously.

“When are we landing?”

“Five hours.”

Ignis sighs.

“Fine. I need something to eat.”

*

Ignis can hear the rhythm of Gladio’s breathing. He wishes he were close enough to hear his heartbeat, but the canteen table lies in the way. Of all his companions Gladio has always been the one he’s sought comfort from, physically and emotionally.

“You don’t have anything to say to me?”

Gladio’s breathing hitches for a single beat, before smoothing back into normalcy.

“Not much to say,” he grunts.

Ignis remembers being teenagers, young and dumb and stupid, driving to some park or lover’s lane with him after an evening of tending to Noct, the two curling up in the backseat and dwelling there, in the dark, in some place where it felt as if the world couldn’t see them.

He takes another sip of Elixir-laced coffee.

“Alright.”

*

After the stop, it’s another day to Caem. Ignis can’t sleep.

He feels his one blinkable eye open, staring up where the springs of the cot above him should be. Even though he’s wrapped in two of Aranea’s barrack quilts, he can’t feel the warmth. Stasis has made him even more useless than he was before.

Before Ignis can hit any kind of substantial sleep, Prompto whimpers and jolts awake from the upper bunk, his labored breathing ripping through the silence. When his breaths finally even out, he switches to whispered curses. Ignis even thinks he might be crying.

The upper bunk squeals. Boots land on the metal floor. Prompto pauses, then grunts as he sits down on the floor next to their bunk.

Ignis must be a convincing fake sleeper, because Prompto begins to sing.

*

The lighthouse is the only thing guiding them to safety.

The Falcon comes down in the middle of the coastal highway they’ve driven so many times before. When Ignis steps off the ship – guided by Prompto, Gladio’s jacket draped across his shoulders though he still hasn’t said anything real to him – sea air rappels up the cliff to greet them, fierce and cold in the Night. If he was still worried about his hair, he would have found it ruined immediately.

The trip up to the safehouse is rough. Even with both the cane and Prompto’s help he keeps tripping on the stone steps. Twigs and branches and tree bows that have crashed to the ground since their last visit make the terrain treacherous, and all this not to mention the incline. As they make progress, a point of gray in Ignis’s darkness gets bigger, and bigger, and bigger, until suddenly unfamiliar hands are grasping his shoulders and pulling him upright.

“Scientia,” comes the voice of Cor Leonis, surprised and grieved in equal, uncharacteristic parts.

Inside, the home is the warmest place they’ve been in weeks. The amazing smell of Monica’s cooking permeates through every room, and even though Ignis can’t quite appreciate it, there is light everywhere.

“Thank you for the notice,” Cor says as he settles Ignis, Prompto, and Gladio all into comfortable seats at the dining table. “We worried you had fallen in Niflheim. Though it seems as if worse may have happened.”

The chair to Ignis’ left, where Prompto sits, scrapes slightly against the floor.

“You’re here though,” Monica chips in, “and that’s the important part.”

“Pardon,” Ignis interrupts, “I think I’ve missed something – where are Iris and Talcott?”

“Asleep, thankfully,” Cor says.

“That’s the only reason I’m _down_ here,” Gladio mumbles.

They discuss painful and lingering things – the Crystal and Noctis; the ancient texts from the Citadel’s library, all burnt; the Ring; the lifespan of the safehouse itself.

“We’re going to have to relocate to Lestallum within the next week,” Cor announces. “I’ve already told the children, and they’re packed. It doesn’t look like you have much in the way of personal items either, all things considered.”

Monica stands from her chair and walks to the end of the room where the kitchen is. When she returns she’s carrying something heavy. By the way it thunks on the dining table in front of them and smells of garlic and rosemary, Ignis guesses a stew pot.

“Of course, we’ll be staying here for as long as we can,” Cor continues as Monica portions the soup into bowls. “At this rate, we’ll be giving you three days here to regain your strength and get patched up. Do you think you can manage the relocation after that?”

“Don’t think we have much of a choice,” Gladio spits. Cor kindly ignores the state of his temper.

“Big guy’s kinda right,” Prompto follows.

Monica taps Ignis on the shoulder, and whispers, “Hold out your hand,” into his ear. When he complies, a spoon is placed tenderly there.

Ignis doesn’t end up contributing to the begrudging agreements, only sitting, eating the soup and trying not to criticize every bite.

*

Talcott and Iris ask too many questions. The first time they come to him and ask about his eyes, he manages to brush it off on his own – but then when Ignis overhears them ask Prompto if he’s okay, what with the patchy bits of gauze strewn up and down his arms, he manages to step in and successfully distract all three of them from the question.

At least Gladio is smiling again. Ignis can hear it in the way he talks. He spends all his time with Iris, the two of them playing and teasing and goofing off like siblings should, even as the world decays around them. Every night before bed, he thanks the Astrals for this small blessing, that at least one of them is able to take their mind off of the events in Niflheim.

Gladio sleeps with Iris, Talcott, and Monica in the larger upstairs room. Cor has his own closet-sized room on the first floor, which leaves Ignis and Prompto with the second upstairs bedroom, a size between the other two.

For every night they remain in Caem, Prompto kicks and writhes in his bed. At times he goes completely still after the initial struggle, his breathing too frantic and shallow for Ignis to know he’s out of the nightmare. Other times, he bursts awake in the early hours of the morning. It interrupts Ignis’s sleep, true, but that’s more due to his own nightmares keeping him up than anything else.

If there was some way that he could heal Prompto’s mind, he would.

*

They get up during the earliest hours of the morning when they leave for Lestallum, even though the very word ‘morning’ has no meaning anymore. Ignis is already awake when Cor and Gladio begin packing the group’s spare belongings – he’d ask to help, but has been shot down too many times during their brief reprieve here to entertain the impossibility of someone actually taking him up on it.

Besides, Gladio’s avoidance has now become a mutual effort. It hurts too much to be around him, anyway.

Prompto helps him shave and do his hair before they have to leave. Ignis takes it as an improvement, on both their parts – this is the first time that Prompto has actually _wanted_ to touch anyone since Gralea, and it’s the first time since the altar that Ignis has had the presence of mind to care about hygiene. They crack jokes in the bathroom together, and it feels almost normal. Like waiting for the shower in a caravan, like chats during meal prep, like talking in the car while Gladio reads and Noct dozes in the sunlight –

It’s funny how those moments on the road, homeless and scared and angry, have become such warm memories for Ignis. If he really thinks about it, he remembers feeling bitter, and exasperated, and annoyed by the ridiculousness of his friends more often than not. Now, whenever his thoughts drift to the tent, or the Regalia, or hours spent watching Noctis fish, a warmth settles over him like none he’s ever felt in his life.

Prompto gels up his bangs, laughing about camera lenses, and how to take photos in the dark, and Ignis suddenly realizes that he’d never had a family, before the trip.

And even worse: as they decide on seating arrangements for two cars, and Gladio subtly insists he drive separate from the two of them, Ignis also realizes that he’s starting to lose them.

There’s a jump from next to him as he suddenly grasps Prompto’s hand. Guilt rises in his chest like his magic, threatening to drown him, until Prompto squeezes back.

*

Cor _says_ it’s Lestallum, and Ignis doesn’t know how to argue that. Something feels off in this city that they’ve come to know so well since war broke out. Perhaps it’s simply because, for the first time, he’s unable to see the colors, the laundry strung from the windows, the street vendors, the bright blue sky above. Everything feels foreign, and dark, and much too cold.

Prompto stays holding his hand after they get out of the car, and Ignis is starting to think that it’s not just for his sake. They stay behind Cor as he guides them through the tiny, pot-holed streets and foul-smelling alleyways to The Leville, where an apartment has been reserved for them and Gladio to share – Astrals know how uncomfortable that’s going to be. Ignis’s feet keep tripping over themselves even as his cane seeks out flaws in the road. Prompto holds tighter, helps him back up, tells him they’re almost there even when he’s said it five different times now.

In Accordo, being blind was a heartbreaking affair. In Niflheim, it was an inconvenience. Now that they’re back in Lucis, it feels as if his limbs have been torn from his body; like he’s missing more senses than just the one. He _should_ know how to navigate. He _should_ know where to locate things.

_He should, he should, he should…_

They finally arrive and, at least, the lobby of the hotel-turned-emergency-apartments smells the same. Ignis takes great gulps of air when they get inside, trying to keep the smell of carpet cleaner and fresh laundry with him as they ascend the stairs and into where they’ll be staying.

“It’s small, but you’ve slept with four people in here before,” Cor points out once he unlocks the door to their first real residence in a long time.

“Is there a kitchen?” Ignis asks immediately.

There’s a moment of silence where Cor likely nods, then clears his throat instead. “Towards me and through to your left.”

He sheds Prompto off and follows the instructions. He recognizes he’s in the right place when the floor shifts under his feet from firm carpeting to tile, with a small rug by the kitchen sink. He trails his fingertips along the countertops, the burners on the stove, the small dish rack provided to them by management. He’s trying to remember what everything _looks_ like.

“I think I’ll leave you to it,” Cor says. “Argentum,” he adds, likely nodding his head slightly.

“Uh. Marshal.”

The door to their room shuts. Ignis can feel the tremor of it all the way in the back.

He baked tarts in this hotel, once. Maybe not this exact room. But somewhere here.

Ignis feels his way back to the stovetop, and down to the handle of the oven, gripping it harder than his abandoned cane – as if he could open the door and hot air would rush out, and he would be able to see the tarts, see Gladio’s smirk, see the sun, see _Noct._

Steps start in his general direction, and there’s a sigh from Prompto.

“Okay. I’m gonna go find food. Will you be okay by yourself?”

“I’m fine,” Ignis says.

Prompto knows when to back down. “Gotcha,” he says. “Your cane’s on the bed. Back in a jiff.”

The door shuts again, and it hits him – the music.

There is no longer music in Lestallum.

*

Prompto arrives back with the food, and they mutually agree to turn in for the night. Gladio still hasn’t arrived yet, so they share the bed closest to the balcony.

Perhaps it’s because they’re not sleeping in bunkbeds or on rollaway cots anymore, but Prompto sleeps soundly for the first night in weeks. Ignis lies on his back with his hands crossed where his stomach aches with anxiety. He listens for the door.

It never opens.

*

“He’s not a Shield if there’s no King,” Cor says matter-of-factly, when their door doesn’t open for seven straight nights. “He may be nobility, but that’s it. There’s no Insomnian Court, no Citadel. He is no longer obligated to be here.”

“Have you no faith in Noctis?”

“We all have ways to contact Gladiolus. We even know he’s in Meldacio, from our contacts up North. He’ll come back if Noctis does, and you know that.”

 _That’s a hell of a way to say that Prompto and I don’t matter,_ Ignis thinks.

“I see.” He purses his lips. “And you still won’t put me on the field?” he asks, though his tone is so dry and barren it comes out like a statement.

“I’m not risking your magic and your strategist’s mind so you can go kill yourself. Gladio would agree with me on that much.”

Cor stands, signaling an end to the bickering. Ignis knows when to take the hint.

“Re-acquaint yourself with Lestallum,” he says, and a hand comes down on Ignis’s shoulder. “You’re needed here.”

“Yes, Marshal,” he says. The door shuts behind him.

*

Ignis can cross their kitchen in three long paces.

The smell of their place has shifted from generically clean hotel to that of burnt food. There are crusted bits on the stovetop that Ignis’s fingers brush against as he tries again, and again, and again to _make_ something of himself. He’s not allowed to use the oven anymore – both Prompto and himself had agreed upon that when the cake he was trying to bake wasn’t the only thing burned.

He doesn’t know how Prompto copes with this. With _him_. There must be catharsis out there in the Night, where he can lose himself in hunting down daemons he can _see_.

The days Prompto goes out hunting he comes back early in the A.M. and collapses in their shared bed immediately, leaving Ignis to heal his injuries as the other snores.

It’s a good system, actually. Some nights, Prompto’s heartbeat under his hands is the only thing that reminds Ignis he’s not alone in the dark.

*

Two weeks in, Cor appoints Ignis to a lean-to hospital not far from The Leville.

The stench upon walking in is unlike anything he has ever smelled in his life, even when compared with nights sharing a soaking wet tent with three bloodied men. The mortification of vomiting in front of the very people he’s been sent to help is the only thing that keeps him upright, walking tall into the sea of makeshift beds.

He has a nurse dedicated to his needs, who directs him to the patients in the most unstable conditions, and brings him water and coffee and Elixirs blessed by the Glaives.

Flames never leave his hands in all the hours that he works, pressing his magic to sticky, bleeding wounds, swiping his fingers across the foreheads of hunters delirious with fever, drawing up and down the meridians on the bodies of these poor souls.

There are so _many_ of them, dying in this war they’re not meant to win.

But at least it’s something he can do.

*

“He’s here,” Prompto gasps awake at two A.M.

Ignis is still groggy, but manages to sit up on his elbows.

“H-he’s here,” Prompto repeats, and the bedding they both sleep under rustles, and their headboard bangs against the wall. “By the door. I can see him, oh _fuck fuck fuck_ I can _see_ him – “

“There’s no one here, Prompto,” Ignis says, searching for his companion. “There’s no one in the room.”

The Armiger tinkles, a sudden flash of gray in the black.

“I…I can’t let him…”

“I know.” Ignis reaches a hand out again, and latches onto the barrel of a gun. “I know.”

“I…I…” Prompto stammers. His voice breaks.

“It’s a nightmare,” Ignis exhales. He maneuvers the gun down, and it shatters back into the Armiger upon hitting the blankets. “Safe, Prompto. You’re safe.”

“Safe…?”

“That’s right.” Ignis clasps Prompto’s freed hands. “I swear it.”

“Safe,” Prompto repeats, letting out a massive breath and lurching onto Ignis, tangling in his arms, clutching fistfuls of his sleep shirt.

In the morning they wake up, still clinging to each other.

*

He’s on his fifth straight hour of healing the wounded – his magic power and his stamina has grown more stable with time and practice – when the nurse tending to him today touches his shoulder.

“Food for you, Glaive Scientia.”

Ignis finishes with his current patient, waits until there’s enough feeling back in his arms to take what it is that he’s being given. Whatever it is, it smells amazing. Savory and filling, like chickatrice and green onion—

His hands clasp around a styrofoam cup, and he ends up nearly dropping the Cup Noodles in his lap.

That night Ignis can’t sleep, waiting for the sound of a door that is never going to open.

*

The interesting thing is that they’re still sleeping in the same bed.

It’s been two months now, and logically, Ignis knows that if Gladio hasn’t returned yet, he’s not going to anytime soon. Prompto doesn’t need to sleep with him anymore.

Between shifts at the hospital and Prompto’s rapid-fire hunts, they hardly find time to sit and eat together – but tonight, chewing over Ignis’s latest edible disaster, he can’t stop thinking about it.

“Prompto.”

“Mmf?”

“Do you want the bed by the door?”

Prompto’s fork slides out from behind his teeth, then clatters against his plate as he sets it down.

“Weren’t we saving that for when Gladio gets back?”

Ignis flinches.

“He can take it if he ever returns, but I must admit how unlikely it’s starting to look.”

“What about Iris? Wouldn’t he want to see her again?”

“Evidently not. She’s well into her hunter training, besides. They’re both distracted.” He tries to steer the conversation back to the initial topic. “Would you prefer if I was the one to move?”

Prompto goes silent – not even the clinking of his silverware gives him away. Ignis suddenly, vividly remembers how he used to bite his lip when suffering from an anxiety spiral. His heart aches.

“Prompto?” Ignis says, gently.

“You…ngh. You help with the…”

_Ah._

“The nightmares?”

Prompto lifts his fork off his plate. He taps it rhythmically against the edge.

“I see…him, again. A lot. Ar…” he stops. Tries again. “Ard—”

“You don’t have to say it.”

Prompto drops his fork. Clears his throat.

“You’re nothing like him. Everything _there_ was cold, and sharp, and…he… _hurt_. You don’t.” Ignis hears a slight smile in Prompto’s voice. “You’re warm.”

*

Ignis opens his eyes.

Light bleeds around the edges of the blackout curtains of their motel room. He squints, and the clock on the wall reads six thirty.

At his side, miracle of miracles, Noctis is sleeping. He’s tucked safely into bed, clinging to Ignis as if he’s that moogle plushie he loved so much as a kid. Ignis’s hand finds his hair, and brushes through his bangs, and trails down his pale cheeks.

His heart pounds wildly with excitement, and it causes him to wake up to darkness, grasping at nothing.

Prompto’s gone on a long trip, and that might explain the nightmare – there’s been no one to hold for the last two nights. Ignis’s subconscious must merely be filling in the gaps, and he knows this logically, but it doesn’t stop him from losing his breath and enduring a panic attack before he can even get up to shower.

But after, when his mind rings clear again, there’s nothing on the agenda for today – so Ignis decides to do something unexpected. He leaves the house, on a free day, without Prompto.

The streets of Lestallum, tiny alleyways and open roads alike, are strewn with thick wires and cords he must watch out for, not to mention debris, trash, bits of buildings that have given up their purpose. He takes his time with all of it, not having much else to do anyway. For the first time since having received it, Ignis is sincerely grateful for the cane from the First Secretary.

The small corner grocery is only two blocks from The Leville, but it still takes him fifteen minutes to walk the distance both ways. Getting there, though, is worth it. He buys a little of powdered milk, a little sugar, eggs, and berries from the greenhouses by the power plant. It’s hard to carry the grocery sack while still trying to find his way back home, but by the time Ignis walks back through the door of their little home he’s flushed with exhaustion and pride.

He hasn’t made the tarts in months, but he finds that when he takes a breath and concentrates, the process comes to him. When he knows exactly where he left everything, making dough is easy – mere muscle memory.

Even the oven doesn’t seem daunting as he pre-heats it. _And_ he remembers the oven mitts this time.

Prompto comes home hours long after the tarts have cooled and the kitchen has been cleaned from a meager dinner.

“Woah. Something smells…good? Iggy?”

There’s the sound of him laying something weighty on their bed – his glaive coat, most likely. Ignis doesn’t bother complaining about getting blood on the sheets as he brings a covered plate out of the kitchen.

“What’d you – oh.”

Prompto goes silent as he pulls the tea towel off, then laughs.

“Oh my gods. Oh my gods! You did it! I-I mean, they’re kinda…” Ignis hears him pull one off the plate, the tarts sitting above it sliding to the porcelain. “…Kinda sad looking, but they smell amazing, holy shit. And they’re not burnt!”

Ignis laughs too, a breathy chortle of relief, as Prompto takes a bite.

“Aw fuck, I could totally see us eating more of these.” Then, quietly: “Noct would love them.”

The dream from the morning is a half-forgotten, melancholy thought.

*

Lately they’ve been directing him to hunters that are unsalvageable, brought from so far away and in such horrible condition that they die on the way to Lestallum, and there is nothing that Ignis can do. The most powerful of his magic tricks only raises the _unconscious_ , not resurrects the dead.

He still tries, though.

He pours every ounce of energy he has into stemming the rivers of blood, or closing up wounds bigger than his hand, or in removing _some_ daemonic poison. The magic flows out of him until his entire world is bright gray, until his head hurts and he can’t even stand anymore. The nurses usually pull him away at that point.

And every time, with every victim, he clasps their hand and prays to the Astrals that whatever comes after this life will be kind to them. At this rate, Noctis might be able to reign over most of his kingdom once the Dawn is restored.

After his shifts, he tries not to dwell on the spectacular loss of life – after all, with him there, the city has been able to save dozens of hunters from painful fates. He goes home, and he tries to cook, or he volunteers in the greenhouses, or he wraps himself up somewhere warm, dreaming of the men he loves.

When Prompto comes home on nights like this, Ignis pretends to sleep. Coming in, he throws his coat and boots in their filthy place, hanging half out of the closet doorway; sometimes he takes a shower, and the water pipes rattle the wall behind the bed; sometimes he eats. Sometimes he does none of those things.

But after living together for the last six months, he always knows when Ignis is fake-sleeping.

What he does on these nights, without fail, is sit gently on the edge of the bed—Ignis always hears the mattress creak at an awkward angle underneath him. He’ll sigh, exhaling exhaustion and trauma and a million horrific things. His fingers find Ignis’s hair, and he’ll _sing_.

Prompto was never meant to be a singer. For someone who was trained in music theory by Citadel tutors and played piano with Noctis until he began to refuse the hobby, Ignis is well aware that Prompto’s terrible. But there’s something about the songs coming from _him_ that make them comforting – perhaps it’s the reminder of being back on the open road, or the cheesy, charming love songs that Prompto favors, or just the sound of his voice, and his fingers in his hair.

Ignis has so rarely let himself be comforted by anyone.

Some might say that Prompto is too much work, between the nightmares and his constant need to fill any emotional void with chatter, but the one thing that Ignis can clearly see is that there is so much compassion in him that it leaks out into everything.

In the end he never fails to fall asleep like that, guided into rest by Prompto’s voice.

*

“Trust me, if there’s any good part about Gladdy being gone, it’s definitely this. He would never have allowed me to hunt if he were here.”

It’s late. They’re tucked away in a hole-in-the-wall café somewhere in Lestallum’s bowels. They’re cramped into a table that, ostensibly, seats four, but barely fits the three of them. Ignis, having just come off his latest emotionally and physically exhausting shift, is very proud of himself for not flinching at their current discussion topic – though it might have something to do with Prompto’s hand on his knee, under the table.

“How long have you been at it, again?” Ignis asks Iris, who sits across from him.

“Been training since we got here,” Iris grins, “but they only let me out onto the field with Prom a couple of months ago.”

“Don’t worry, I’m looking out for her,” Prompto leans over and stage-whispers to Ignis. There’s a brief scuffling then, and his warmth pulls away, followed by giggles from him and Iris.

“You’re such a nerd!” she protests.

Prompto laughs. “Actually, she’s pretty good,” he admits. “I think we already kinda knew that though.”

It’s difficult for Ignis to work up the energy to talk, to join the fun, when he’s doing everything he can to stave off stasis and wait patiently for his coffee.

He tries, though.

“It’s true. You’ve always been formidable in battle.”

The café owner approaches then, laden with meals for Prompto and Iris after having cleaned up a small hunt for Holly, and a single mug for Ignis. He can still feel flesh squelching under his fingertips – he’s not very hungry.

“I do have a question for you though, Iris,” he continues, after his first sip. “In battle, what is your weapon of choice?”

Her silverware clatters. A cup is picked up and placed down again ahead of him.

“I’m _all_ about the shurikens, actually. They’re lightweight, easy to throw and retrieve, and easy to carry around, too. Even Prom says I’ve got a good eye with them!”

“She really does,” Prompto says with his mouth full. “Got almost as many of those fucking goblins in the power plant today as I did.”

Hunting contests. Like brother, like sister.

Ignis takes another sip of his coffee, and shuts up.

When they get home, he claims first shift in the bathroom. Ignis turns the shower on, so hot he can feel the steam curling up from the bottom of the tub and licking at his arms where he sits naked on the edge. He reaches into the Armiger – and comes out with daggers, silver handled and intricate, sharp to the touch.

Curiously, what little magic he has left in him reacts to the presence of the blades – if he just _let_ himself, perhaps he could store some of his power inside them for future use. It’s an idea, at least. Perhaps someday.

As he traces designs in the silver, his thoughts drift to Iris out there slaughtering daemons, the infected wounds of those he has yet to meet in that hospital, and finally Noctis, again and again and _again_ Noctis, dead on the throne.

*

Ignis wakes up to darkness, heart pushing against his ribcage so desperately that it hurts, his legs tangled just slightly with Prompto’s. He sits up and feels around – there’s the blankets, and the sheets, and he lifts a hand to his forehead to wipe the sweat that’s gathered there away, trying to catch his breath.

This is the second time this week that Ardyn has showed up in his nightmares, and nothing feels real.

Stumbling out of bed, he wakes Prompto, who mumbles and rustles the blankets as he sits up.

“Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“I need to leave,” Ignis says in a hurry, reaching into the Armiger for presentable clothing.

“What?” Prompto’s sleepy. “Sorry, I’m still – was it a bad dream?”

“You don’t want to know,” Ignis replies, pulling on his jacket, retrieving his cane from the bedside. “I have to go.”

“Iggy –”

But he’s already made it to the door, and then down the staircase, and then out into the streets of Lestallum.

Ignis heaves a breath. The Night air isn’t exactly _fresh_ , but it’s the best they have. He picks a direction, feet automatically taking him…somewhere.

Everything is dark, dark, _dark_ , and in the dream he could _see_ , see Ardyn’s smile as he grasped Noct’s shoulder, see the glint off his knife as he raised it above him, see the ocean, cold and cruel, smashing against the narrow altar. But at least he can walk, and Ignis tries hanging onto that – he’s not held down, and he’s not on the narrow stone platform. He’s in the streets, tripping over generator wires, feeling the body heat of passersby as he edges too close.

It’s not enough.

He doesn’t even realize that it’s not enough until the smell of motor oil and rain and miasma is replaced with something soft and earthy, and he slows to a stop in front of what must be the greenhouses.

Ignis takes the first moment since the nightmare to stand still, taking stock.

Then he calls, “Holly?”

He hears a rustling several yards in front of him, plastic sheets being moved aside. Then:

“She’s not in right now – oh! Glaive Scientia!”

The title is still unfamiliar, and it gives him pause. Then he shakes his head.

“My apologies.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it!” The woman – he doesn’t recognize her voice – steps closer, within conversation distance. “Did you need something?”

Ignis didn’t intend to come here, but…he thinks he’s wandered in the right direction regardless.

“Are you in need of assistance this morning? I’ve nowhere to be today.” 

“Ah.” The woman laughs sheepishly. “Well, actually, now that you mention it…”

Inside the main greenhouse is warm, temperature controlled to the best of the ladies’ ability. Ignis doesn’t hesitate taking on a task, thrusting his hands in the dirt – and almost immediately, his mind clears.

As he works on transplanting seedlings and picking vegetables, he isn’t thinking about body counts, or Ardyn, or even Prompto. His worth may be mixed when it comes to everything else, but these tiny, fragile living things are grateful just to be taken care of, and even more, they’re _resilient_. It’s a nice feeling, gardening – a combination of knowing that his every action is important, and noted, but that things will also get on fine without him.

Close to leaving, he finds a bush of rosemary whose leaves feel brittle and dry, and their scent almost nonexistent in places. Experimentally, he expends some magic power to light up his fingers and trace down their stem – finds that it softens and grows, just slightly, under his touch.

Ignis walks home, newly grounded, surprisingly content in the knowledge that in the end, these little green things will outlive him.

They will Noct.

*

One of today’s patients burns to the touch, poisoned terribly from a deadly combination of wasp venom and Scourge. The stinger from the daemon has already been surgically removed – luckily, something that is in no way Ignis’s jurisdiction – and he sits, probing the swollen and mangled tissue with hands aflame.

The hunter keeps twisting, writhing, making it difficult to do his work. He’s talking under his breath, too, pleas and prayers that likely began during the hunt itself, and is now perpetuated by the venom. It sounds not unlike Prompto on a bad night. Ignis reminds himself to keep breathing.

“Saw him,” he keeps muttering. The poison is nowhere near gone, but at least the flesh wounds should be healed completely quite soon. “Saw him. Saw him. W’saw him, saw the Shield –”

Ignis stops healing, stops thinking, stops breathing.

“What?” he says to the hunter, the first real words spoken he’s spoken to him all evening. “The King’s Shield? Are you certain?”

“Saw him,” the hunter repeats, delirious. “Couldn’t stop – ah, Astrals, couldn’ta…stopped…”

“Where were you?” Ignis asks, and the logical part of his mind that’s locked away presently knows that he isn’t going to get anywhere with this line of questioning, but the stupid, desperate, traumatized part of him barrels on. Distantly, he feels the presence of someone having stopped just behind his shoulder.

“Stars…oceans, cliffs…stars…”

“Cape Caem? Were you near Caem?”

“Glaive Scientia,” warns the nurse behind him.

“Couldn’ta…stopped…potions, not enough, not enough…”

The hunter keeps writhing as if he can’t get comfortable in his bed roll, though his mumbling trails off into nothingness.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Ignis mutters under his breath.

“Glaive Scientia,” the nurse behind him sounds nervous, “do you need a break?”

He lets out a shaky exhale. All the magic that had built up in him over the course of healing the main stinger wound is leaking out, like helium out of a balloon. Stasis is catching up with him – he may not have the power for much more work today.

If his hands weren’t on fire, he’d reach under his sunglasses and rub at his eyes.

“I’m fine. Allow me to…finish here. I’ll be fine.”

The nurse backs away. Ignis pulls nearly to the last of his magic stores to close up the skin where the stinger struck the hunter, and then allows himself to stop. After, he finds his way to one of the meager washrooms they have in the hospital. He allows the magic time to taper off, washes his hands, and then puts his head in his hands and yells.

*

When Ignis returns to the hospital the next morning, he sets off to where the poisoned hunter was the day prior – with more energy, he might be able to pull out an antidotal spell.

In the bedroll he remembers is a different hunter, sleeping with a broken arm. When he asks the nearest nurse about it, she whispers an apology.

*

“It is becoming _increasingly_ clear,” Ignis says in his sharpest tone upon arriving in Cor’s office, “that you _truly_ _do_ need me on the field.”

He can’t see Cor’s expression, and he knows just how little the man shows any outward emotion, but the angry, fiery part of Ignis _hopes_ that there is some _modicum_ of surprise on his face.

“I was hoping not to talk about this again,” Cor says, coolly.

“People are _dying_.”

“This is war. I am sorry you haven’t lived through one before.”

“The potions that hunters and Glaives are equipped with aren’t enough, at least in the larger groups,” Ignis continues anyway. “There are only a precious few of us with Noct’s ability to create them, and besides, they run out _ludicrously_ fast. I am doing all I can in the hospital, I, and the nurses, and the doctors, but you must understand, _Marshal_ , that we are barely holding back a flood of dying soldiers.”

“And how would putting you on the field fix our ranks?” he asks, annoyance finally starting to creep into his voice, and Ignis takes that as a triumph.

“If I can heal injuries and poisonings when they happen, before infection sets in or the situation worsens, I am certain that we can shore up our numbers – not to mention send more hunters back to their families. I would also be available to renew the curative supply before we run low.” Cor takes in a breath to say something, and Ignis cuts him off – “Yes, fighting, I know. I’m…rusty, to put it kindly. However, Marshal – I need you to know that I am willing to do whatever it takes to go back out there. Anything. Anything to help these people.”

“Noctis’s subjects,” Cor says.

He had been thinking it without even realizing it. Ignis takes a deep breath; “Yes. And by extension, _our_ subjects.”

“What about the hospital?”

“I can split my time, should it help. A week on hunts, a week in the hospital. Something along those lines.”

Cor says nothing while Ignis stands there, grasping onto the back of the chair in front of him, chest heaving and struggling like it does after a long day of healing.

“Argentum should be coming back tonight. Come see me again after he arrives safely and we’ll discuss this matter further.”

It’s the first real victory Ignis has had in a long, long time.

*

On the northeast arm of town, a cement clearing exists for the training of hunters and Glaives. Civilians – the few of them that are left – aren’t allowed in the area, and the debris of buildings and the general apocalypse are routinely cleaned up, swept out of the way, making room for targets and dummy cactuars and the like.

This is the first time that Ignis has visited; he’s only been told stories about it by Prompto, prior to this. He’s here to find a specific person and sure enough – he finds her.

Iris is at the far corner of the clearing. Ignis hears her cries of exhaustion and the hefty thwack of her shuriken against something stiff.

“It sounds as if that target insulted your brother’s name.”

There’s a crystalline shatter as she calls her shuriken back to her. He can hear how heavily she’s breathing in the way she talks.

“Oh! Hey, Iggy! What’cha doing here?”

“Just here to get the lay of the land. I’ll be hunting soon, after all.”

“Ahh! I thought I heard Prom mention something about that! OMG, I am so happy for you!” He hears her rustle forward, and then stops – “Actually, wait, can I hug you? Prom likes it when I ask him first.”

The lines in Ignis’s forehead furrow. “Of course.”

Iris throws her arms around his middle and squeezes, hard. Ignis lies a hand gently between her shoulder blades.

“So happy for you,” she repeats, then releases him. “So? Need someone to show you around the lot? Tell ya which ones are the best targets to throw things at?” He can practically hear the hearts and sparkles radiating out of her smiling face.

“Certainly. However, to tell you the truth…” Ignis tilts his head down. “I came here to look for a trainer. Someone talented and strong, though young and spry enough to review the basics of combat with me.”

“Oh sure, there’s lots of people like that here!”

Ignis clears his throat. “A person I have familiarity with would be preferable, as well. Someone I trust.”

He can’t help but smile when the penny drops for Iris a few seconds later.

*

The Night air isn’t exactly fresh, but when the truck that Ignis and his fellow Glaives ride in swoops beyond the eastern tunnel and out of Lestallum, Ignis doesn’t care enough to tell the difference.

Wind whips through his hair, expertly styled once again by Prompto, and rattles his new visor against his scars. It’s the first time in a long while that cold has felt pleasurable. It reminds him of driving by the sea, or through canyons, right on the cusp of a more natural nightfall.

The nostalgia doesn’t make him ache – instead, he smiles.

And the hunt goes even better. Ignis stays mostly on the defense, stealthing near rocks and shrubs, waiting for the blowback of any of his companions, or their cries of pain. Like he and Cor agreed, prior to initiating the hunt, he had blessed potions and ethers and elixirs at the group campsite in the hopes that they’d have more than they needed. But the Coeurls they’re fighting are tough and unpleasant, and as Ignis hides away awaiting the injured, whiffs of ozone reach him where their whiskers have lit up the air.

In the end, the pre-made curatives aren’t enough to tide them through the whole fight. Ignis finds himself teetering on the edge of stasis by the end of the encounter, but the raw, powerful feeling of knowing his whole team will go home alive is enough for him to ignore the magic burning him from the inside out. 

When they get back to camp, _all_ of them, someone makes meat pies, and Ignis is almost tempted to send a prayer of gratitude to the Astrals.

*

This time the light is the thing that wakes him up, rays of gray piercing his not-vision in the middle of a restless sleep. Ignis sits up, all senses alert, and hears the sound of retching coming from the same place the light is – the bathroom.

“Prompto?” Ignis calls. “Prompto?”

No response, except for heavy breathing. Eventually, the toilet is flushed, and the door creaks on its hinges as it’s pushed closed so Prompto can access the sink. The gray fades, leaving him in darkness once again. Ignis wonders how he didn’t feel the struggle in bed, or hear Prom stumble out of it. Irrational as it may be, guilt nags at him until he hears the lightswitch click off, and the door open.

Ignis says his name again. Prompto walks closer, and sits down on the edge of the bed. The mattress dips towards his weight.

“I’m sorry for waking you up,” he rasps, his throat audibly torn to hell. He almost sounds like he did when they found him in the Keep, a little over a year ago now.

“There’s no need to apologize.”

The blankets rustle.

“I just…want this done. I want this done. I don’t want to dream like this anymore. I don’t…want this anymore.”

“I know.”

Prompto’s weight shifts, and the blankets rustle again, and suddenly there’s heat coming for Ignis, wrapping around his middle, threatening to swallow him whole.

“I don’t want him anymore.”

“He doesn’t have you.”

“You don’t know that,” Prompto whispers, lying his head on Ignis’ shoulder. He’s still sweaty from the nightmare, and a little clammy. His breath smells minty. “S’could be fake. Could be he’s outside. I dunno.”

He tries not to let it show, but the thought makes Ignis’s heart rate spike – then fear settles into white-hot anger.

“He can’t hurt you here. I won’t allow it.”

Prompto laughs. Ignis can’t tell if it’s sincere or not, and his stomach twists painfully.

“Just…” he reaches up, and plays with the ends of Ignis’s hair. “If you ever do see him. Anywhere. Tell me? Please?”

“I will.”

Prompto curls against him tighter.

“Okay.”

*

Despite the initial triumph, there is something left to be desired about Ignis’s stamina.

In the last year he’s improved the skill of rationing his magic power for the spells and injuries that truly matter, prioritizing the most life-threatening conditions or those in most danger over the opposite. But between using his stressed connection with Noct to create curatives before every hunt and relearning how to hold his own in battles, he’s been having to learn resource management all over again.

On this particular night, he’s paired up with a team of four other people, an even mix of hunters and glaives with Prompto back at camp, holding down the fort. The flashlights attached to their coats arc off the shiny, slick armor of the Red Giants ahead of them in ethereal beams, illuminating patches of the rain around them. The ground gushes with every step taken, muddy and wet and fighting them almost as much as the daemons themselves.

“Which side?” Ignis asks, summoning a small ball of white light in his right hand.

“Luh… _ach_ –” one of the glaives winces terribly. “Left…”

“Understood,” Ignis mutters, and presses the sphere of magic to where a burn has torn clean through her coat and her tank, rippling across her abdomen. Through the healing flames he feels the skin underneath his hands smooth back together, dead cells and miasma flaking off into the dark. The rain pelts them both, and the patch of skin becomes slippery and clear within moments. The glaive warps away as soon as the pain stops, followed shortly by the sound of metal clanging against metal in the near distance.

Out here on the plains south of Lestallum, there’s nowhere to hide away and await victims. Not that Ignis is keen on that plan at this exact moment, but the sudden feeling of being wide in the open while he’s still only barely catching his breath, white magic still lingering on his hands and the icy rain only making them more numb, makes Ignis feels terribly exposed.

His sensitivity to light continues to be a blessing – he can pinpoint the general area where the closest Red Giant is on the field, and considering what large targets they are, can actually be rather accurate about it. He does a leap and a dodge roll to the side, over to where he remembers having left his chocobo, and tumbles face first into his feathers. He was right, at least, though the sudden acrobatics so quickly after having healed someone leaves him reeling, like Gladio’s punched him in the gut.

The gray where the Red Giants linger flickers a bit, but stays. Approximately northwest from his position, one of the hunters cries out in pain.

Ignis clenches a fist tight into the reins of his bird, for moral support –

Then he dives forward towards the cries, his feet finding purchase somewhere, somehow amidst the mud –

And his chest explodes in pain, that bright gray completely overwhelming him.

*

Skirting unconsciousness, Ignis remembers being thirteen and training with Gladio for the first time in the gyms of the Citadel.

Right now, he watches the scene as if from the ceiling. There they are, pacing across from each other on the blue training mats, a broadsword slung across Gladio’s shoulder and a longsword clasped in his own hands. There’s something in Gladio’s face that Ignis remembers not understanding at the time, some glint in his eyes, some way that his smile quirks up, that quickens his heart and his breath and makes the footwork he’s been practicing for years now something foreign.

He’s not paying as much attention as he should be when Gladio comes out of his ready stance and swings towards him. Blinking out of his circuitous, confusing thoughts, Gladio is a blur of brown and black and suddenly Ignis is on his back, the lights in the ceiling above a bright haze.

His head aches something fierce and Gladio’s shouted half-apologies make it worse. His nose is definitely bleeding, and as the lights come back into focus he realizes exactly the nature of his distraction and thinks:

_Oh, no. I can’t._

*

Someone is slapping his cheeks, precious warmth where he feels impossibly cold.

“C’mon, c’mon, Iggy, you gotta wake up…”

Trying to put a name to the voice is slippery, and Ignis can’t quite manage it. It reminds him of the smell of gunpowder, echoes of cheesy love songs, the feeling of sunshine on his face.

He coughs and something sticky comes up his throat.

“Potion.” Ignis coughs again.

“Don’t have any,” the sunshine-person says. “Iggy, they’re all out. They need you.”

Ignis coughs again. “Can’t,” he whispers. “Can you?”

“You’re our priority. We can’t survive without you. I don’t even think _I_ can. Come on, come _on_ , you’ve got to heal yourself, _dude_ –”

The hands on his cheeks move to his own, lying limp at his sides. Sunshine clasps them, lies them on the gushing warmth of Ignis’s stomach.

“You have to heal yourself…people need you…”

The memory with Gladio resurfaces, and with it a mental chant of _I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t I’m not worthy I’m not_ good enough, _but I need to be enough for Noct but I’ll never be enough –_

Something in Ignis’s chest suddenly reacts.

He thinks about Gladio out there in the cold and the dark, likely feeling the need to atone for something, to protect others from himself – he always had a far bigger heart than he let on. He thinks about Prompto – yes, right, of course, that’s Prompto in front of him – screaming himself awake, jumping at shadows and every touch that isn’t his, lying in bed curled together with something neither of them can fix.

He thinks about Noctis in a landscape of infinite blue, and he thinks about the King of Light, pinned to the throne.

None of these are things that he can change. Fate and the Astrals have dealt him a hand that no one, no man or Chosen King, can solve entirely. He will, in fact, never _be enough_.

But that doesn’t mean his actions are meaningless.

His fingers burst into flame amid the blood coating his stomach, and he hears Prompto yelp in surprise, scuffling away along the stone underneath both of them. Ignis gasps as cool currents of magic enter in through the cut in his front and curl through him, relaxing his muscles and sending sweet endorphins to replace the burning pain. He recognizes how badly his hands are shaking along with the pins-and-needles feeling of his magic scraping though those nerves. Ignis doesn’t end up consciously stopping the spell – his body knows when enough is enough, and that’s when the tendrils of magic halt their coursing paths.

He sits up.

“Prompto?”

There’s scuffling on the stone near him.

“Holy shit, you’re okay. Holy _shit_ –”

Even though his fingers aren’t quite in working order just yet, Ignis reaches out, grasping the lapels of Prompto’s Glaive uniform with painful hands and smashing their lips together.

Ignis’ arms wind their way around Prompto’s neck and he presses him close, Prompto doing so much the same that Ignis ends up falling back down again with Prompto, warm and laughing, tangled on top of him. He lies his hands flat on Ignis’s chest.

“Okay. Dude. That was fucking amazing,” he’s laughing, “that was fucking amazing.”

“Thank you,” Ignis says, direct and without a hint of irony, “for trusting me.”

Prompto just laughs harder, resting his head on Ignis’s shoulder. “Anytime. We really do need potions before heading home, though.”

“Will do,” Ignis says, kissing the top of Prompto’s head, and pushes him off so he can set to work.

*

The two of them take it easy during the days afterwards. Ignis stays in bed for a couple of days, the aftereffects of being nearly killed by a Red Giant proving difficult to walk off.

“You’ve got another sick scar now,” Prompto says that first night off, lying in bed with his fingers tracing up and down where Ignis vaguely remembers healing. “Reminds me of Gladio.”

“Perhaps someday he’ll see it,” Ignis murmurs.

In his dreams that night he sees Noctis again, young and smiling and holding his hand tightly as they sit on a short wall in one of the Citadel’s gardens. It’s not like it doesn’t hurt, when he wakes in the middle of the night – the half-memory, half-dream settles close to his heart and stays, burning, aching.

But what it does remind him is this:

If he was ever so happy, he will find that happiness again. Even in a dark world. Even with no sight. And he wants that for the people who survive, more than anything.

Ignis finds Prompto’s shoulder and gives it a squeeze before drifting off again.

*

Ignis opens his eyes.

He is floating, weightless, in a sea of crystalline blue. It is cold here, colder than the Night outside. And somehow, this time, he knows he’s dreaming.

In a flash, he’s standing outside a particular gilded door in the Citadel. Anxiety rushes through him, like it always has every time he’s stood outside this door – he copes with it by clearing his throat, straightening his collar, and knocking.

“Come in,” calls a kindly voice from inside.

The study is not a large place, but it’s magnificent nonetheless. The whole room is decorated in shades of black and gold, with a large wingback chair behind a desk of black oak.

And sitting there, a pair of reading glasses perched on the end of his nose, is King Regis. He looks up from the papers in front of him, and smiles.

Ignis bows. “Your Majesty.”

“No need. We haven’t much time.”

When he comes back up from bowing, Ignis notices that he’s wearing the uniform he favored as a teenager. He feels younger, somehow, too – like the weight of the world on his shoulders isn’t quite so heavy, and his smile comes just a little bit more naturally.

“You summoned me, I take it?”

“Indeed.” Regis removes his glasses and folds them up, setting them carefully on the desk in front of him. “I simply wanted a moment with you, away from the other Lucii.”

“And they gave it to you?” Ignis asks incredulously.

“Not quite.” Something mischievous sparkles in Regis’s eyes. “But back to the matter at hand. Please, sit.”

Ignis does.

“I feel that I owe you an apology.”

He blinks. “What for?”

“I had to give you something. While the Ring is known among those who have worn it for its ability to _take_ , it can also _give_ amazing things. It gave me the New Wall. It gave my son the ability to reunite with his family, if only for a moment. And you…well.” Regis raises a veined hand. “I wanted to give you something that might make up for your sacrifice.”

“There was no need,” Ignis interjects. “I would give my sight again and again for Noctis, even if it meant gaining nothing in return.”

“I know.”

Regis chuckles patiently. He stands, leaning heavily on his cane while he does so. There is a window behind him and slightly to his left – he hobbles over to it, and sunbeams fall across his face.

“However, the other Lucii twisted my pleas. I’m afraid they’ve given you something painful, and cold, and far too little to properly confront the challenges you face.” He looks down. “Once again, they dangle hope in front of you before snatching it away.”

“Is that not the way of the Astrals?” Ignis asks, and Regis laughs again.

“Maybe so.”

Ignis shifts in his seat. “You’re right. It’s not enough. It will never be enough.” Regis’s expression turns dark again before Ignis continues: “But it is _something_.”

He stands.

“Even if I can never help Noct, it’s something. I can heal the people around me. I can heal myself. I can heal Prompto. It may hurt, but you have given me the opportunity to protect what’s precious to me, even for a moment, and for that I am indebted to you.”

For the first time since the beginning of the conversation, Regis meets his eyes.

“Even if it cannot reverse fate?”

“There are things stronger than both fate and magic,” Ignis replies.

Regis is initially taken aback by this – then his features soften, and he smiles that fatherly, comforting smile.

“You are truly wise, Ignis. Noctis is lucky to have a Hand such as yourself.”

“I count myself lucky to be his.”

The scenery around him is starting to get choppy, and it’s harder to focus on where he is and why. Regis is suddenly hugging him, his cane abandoned.

“Thank you,” he says, “and good luck.”

All is darkness, from that point on.

*

The message is ten words long.

Ignis receives it while baking one day, a week and a half out from his injury. He has the screen reader voice it as he stirs cake batter, not thinking anything of it.

_Leonis114: There was a massacre nearby. Gladio is in critical condition._

He freezes. The screen reader repeats it.

_Leonis114: There was a massacre nearby. Gladio is in critical condition._

Ignis has the screen reader repeat one more time.

_There was a massacre –_

He has just enough thought to turn off the oven and soak the batter bowl in soapy water before fleeing the house in pursuit of Cor.

*

The hunt went wrong in The Nebulawood, and what remains of Gladio’s party has retreated to a haven nearby the Chocobo Post. Cor is already there doing damage control and healing what he can from potions and other curatives – although, after a certain amount of time, those can only do so much.

He urges his chocobo faster, their talons smacking against the reassuringly solid highway. It’s both painful and relieving to know how close Gladio was – on the one hand, Ignis can get to where he is in just a couple hours when travelling solo, and on the other hand, the idea that he was so _close_ and likely wasn’t even _thinking_ about them –

The Night wind picks up around Alstor Slough, bad enough that even his heavy Glaive uniform can’t keep out the chill. Luckily, it means he’s not very far. With one hand on the reins and the other adjusting his coat, he presses onward.

Ignis knows he’s there when the sound of leaves rustling and tree branches scraping against each other reach his ears, becoming louder and louder. His chocobo leaps off the side of the highway, a brilliant moment of freefall before their talons find the grass beneath them, and find their way towards the noise ahead, deceptively calming for the situation at hand.

The forest is even colder, and worse, humid. Ignis can feel the dampness in the air almost like it wants to drown him from the inside out. It smells like the greenhouses here, and at least that’s nice – he clings to that sense of comfort while his own heart pounds in his ears.

His chocobo pads along, picking its way through the trees. They continue like that for maybe five minutes before suddenly the bird stops, dead in its tracks.

“Are you alright?” he leans in and asks, running a hand down their feathery neck. “Is it daemons?”

“Close,” comes a familiar, mellifluous voice, and for the second time that day Ignis freezes in panic.

Suddenly, the wind in the trees sounds too much like waves, and Ignis swears he can taste salt on the air. His daggers are in his hands before he remembers summoning them and he is so, so close to leaping off his chocobo.

Luckily, he doesn’t get to make that decision.

He’s sailing through the air suddenly before landing on his side against a log, narrowly avoiding hitting his head. The chocobo _warks_ loudly, over and over, accompanied by the sound of talons stomping off, far away.

“Bloody coward,” he snarls in the chocobo’s general direction, and moves his daggers into a defensive stance.

“There’s no need for that,” Ardyn sighs. Something in his voice sounds genuinely tired. “Poor thing. Astrals know _I_ would panic when confronted with such evil.”

Ignis scrambles to his feet, chest heaving. Somehow, Ardyn lets him.

“Did you do this?” he yells. “Did _you_ _kill_ them?”

“Dear Ignis,” the leaves crunch ahead of him, and Ardyn’s siren voice moves to match each step, “perhaps you’ve noticed by now that I do nothing that doesn’t advance my purposes. Not to mention, you and I both know that there is no way I could destroy your precious Shield more than he does himself.”

“And the hunters?” Ignis takes another step back.

“You misunderstand. I’m merely out for a stroll. So what if a handful of Mindflayers simply get excited at the sight of me? Shouldn’t your ‘warriors of light’ be able to handle such a challenge?”

He wants to pounce. Ignis stands, coiled like a spring as Ardyn paces a wide circle around him. He has to keep reminding himself –

_There is no point._

_The man is immortal._

_Gladio needs you._

_Prompto needs you._

_You are not on the altar._

_You are not on the altar._

_You are not on the altar_.

A flash of memory pops, unbidden, into Ignis’s mind as he clenches his daggers and waits for the monologue to end – Luna, dying and in pain, attempting to heal the Scourge inside this man in her final moments.

It’s a gamble, but Ignis cannot stay here. He has to get to Gladio. He has to get home.

He banishes his daggers, and draws himself upright.

“Ardyn. I can heal you.”

The rhythmic sound of footsteps in leaves stops.

And then, all around him, echoing through the small clearing they’ve found themselves in and likely through the whole wood, Ardyn _laughs_.

“What a bold new strategy you’ve invented, _Specs_ ,” he continues laughing. “Is this a joke? I must say, it’s marvelously funny.”

“I’ve granted the power of white magic, much like the Oracle. I can heal you. I can try.”

“You don’t _know_ already?” Ardyn whips from amused to bitter in an instant. “I know all about your little parlor tricks. You can’t heal magically inflicted wounds, nor what the Gods have given.” He laughs again. “How’s your eyesight?”

His comments twist up Ignis’s insides in anxiety, and grief, and pain – but at least he’s thinking about Gladio again, Gladio holding his hands, Gladio crushing him to his chest in reassurance. 

He has to make it out of this. He has to.

“Why aren’t you killing me?” Ignis asks, perhaps stupidly.

“When your precious King returns. I need all four of you alive – until then. Beyond that…you are aware what happens.”

Ardyn exhales. A moment of silence passes between them.

“I have nothing more to say to you until it comes to pass. As such, I will take my leave. It _really_ was nice giving you and your little boyfriend a scare.”

The leaves scrape near where Ardyn is, and the wind howls louder.

“Oh, and say hello to your _dear_ Prompto for me.”

When the trees settle down again, Ignis knows the clearing is empty.

*

When Ignis arrives at the Haven, there are about a dozen unread texts from Prompto. He had managed to send a brief message informing him of the situation before hopping on his rental chocobo, but was understandably occupied during the journey itself. He sends a couple of quick responses back before seeking out Cor.

Sure enough, the Marshal sits outside of one of two tents in a camp chair.

“Scientia,” he greets as Ignis approaches. It takes a moment for him to find his words – he hasn’t been able to since meeting Ardyn.

“Marshal,” he manages.

“The survivors are stabilized,” Cor thankfully steamrolls ahead, “but it’s gruesome in there.”

“I can clean up. Gladio?”

“Badly injured, but out cold. I’d start with him first, if anything.”

Ignis nods, trying to find reality again. “Good. Alright. I will.” He takes a deep breath. “Point me in the right direction and I’ll get to work.”

*

Prompto arrives with a truck sometime the next morning, though Ignis hasn’t slept. All the hunters’ major wounds are healed, all cuts and scrapes vanished, concussions relieved.

Ignis considers himself lucky for two reasons: one, that he can’t see Gladio after all this time; and two, that even though the man is stabilized, he’s still asleep. The white magic has run its course, so it’s likely just exhaustion, or perhaps dehydration. He’s breathing fine, and he has some new scars, and Ignis is so, so grateful.

Cor manages to direct traffic among the healed men to get everyone safely in the truck and up to Lestallum. Prompto drives, and Ignis sits shotgun, though more than anything does he want to skip this part and curl up somewhere warm with him, safe in the knowledge that he _understands_.

He thinks about Ardyn a lot on the drive. He wonders about how a once-noble man could turn so cruel, and how much of this interference he had _planned_ , and how much the words _your dear Prompto_ had sounded like a purr.

At one point during the drive, Prom’s hand finds his where it sits in between the driver and passenger’s seat.

 _You need to tell him about what happened,_ he thinks.

Ignis squeezes his hand, and brings the back of it up to his lips, briefly.

 _I know_ , he answers himself. _I know._

*

The bowl of congealed cake batter, half-filled with water and forgotten for two days, is being a complete and utter _bitch_ to clean out.

Cleaning dishes is a difficult and strenuous task in the best of times, but after expending most of his magic power and getting little-to-no sleep the night before, on top of not being able to _see_ where any of the sneakier stains are, it is Ignis’s personal hell.

The water is warm though, and the scent of dish soap is sharp enough that he can focus on it. The apartment is quiet due to Prompto having gone out to buy dinner after seeing this mess, and Gladio’s sleeping on the spare bed, his snoring a surprisingly familiar background track to their lives.

Maybe not _comforting_ , not yet, but familiar. The Astrals only know how he’ll react upon waking and learning where he is – but if he wants to pick a fight, Ignis is more than willing to bite.

Damn, but the batter near the top on this metal bowl really isn’t coming off. Ignis growls under his breath, and switches to one of the pans he had greased that afternoon. The butter may be rancid and awful smelling by now, but it’ll be easier to clean than this.

He turns the water hotter, _stronger_ , applies a liberal amount of soap to the loaf pan –

“Looks like you’ve got your hands full there.”

Ignis nearly drops the slippery, greased thing on the floor, whipping around like that. He hasn’t heard that _voice_ in over a year, yet it instantly sends shivers up his spine. He thinks about boyhood crushes he had tried his best to stamp down and silence, teenage experimentation, warmth through the worst times in his life. He thinks of the flickering light of a campfire, the smell of the woods, the feeling of being lost and scared and confused and yet exactly where he’s supposed to be – home.

“Gladio,” he breathes.

A yard away, facing him, Ignis can feel his body heat. He barely resists Gladio’s gravitational pull, the raw urge to just sink into him. He clears his throat.

“Hey,” Gladio says quietly, almost embarrassed. He sounds a little hoarse.

“Hello to yourself,” Ignis says, and it comes out cold.

Gladio clears his throat. “Been a while, huh?”

Ignis doesn’t know what to say to that, and whips back around to return to the dishes.

“Hey. I’m sorry.”

“You’re going to have to say a lot more than that,” Ignis snaps, but in the back of his head, he doesn’t really mean it.

“I know. I fucked up, big time. And I…I understand if I can’t make that up to you, or if you don’t want me here, after that.”

“Astrals, Gladio,” he throws down the loaf pan once again, “I helped save your life. I brought you back to my apartment instead of relegating you to a hole-in-the-wall hospital. I should think that would give you some impression of where I want you.”

Gladio shuts up.

“Okay. Makes sense.”

Ignis shuts off the kitchen faucet, wipes his hands on the towel stuck in the cupboard below, and walks closer. Hesitantly, like wanting to gain the affection of an unfamiliar animal, he places his hands on Gladio’s chest.

“Are you still in any pain?”

“Nah.” Gladio’s hands reach up, and find Ignis’s. “Think you just about cleared that up.”

“When was the last time you ate or drank anything?”

Gladio laughs, and dear Astrals, he really does sound hoarse. “Maybe a few days ago.”

Ignis resists the urge to smack him – his brow crumples, though, and he tries to pull away. “What on Eos were you thinking? Why in the name of _Ifrit’s Hellfire_ would you refuse to take care of yourself when so many people _depend_ on you –”

“Because,” Gladio says, pulling Ignis close again with the slightest of smiles in his voice, “I wanted to get home to you.”

If Ignis could blink, he would.

“Beg _pardon_ –”

“I realized some shit recently. Like I said, I know I fucked up big. I was – fucked, inside, when we left Caem. I still am. I’ve got all this grief and this fucking rage and I didn’t know what to do with it, and I still don’t. But you’re probably not surprised to hear that Iris found me.”

“ _Good for her,_ ” Ignis seethes.

“And she got to me. And I’m here to fix things.” Gladio squeezes his wrists, and warmth floods Ignis from head to toe.

The front door opens.

“Okay!” comes Prompto’s jubilant voice from the entryway. “So they ran out of the curry soup about, eh, halfway into pouring your bowl, so I managed to snag a couple pots of the potato instead –”

His voice gets closer and closer, complete with sound of rustling plastic bag, until it halts maybe a foot in front of them.

“Oh. Shit. I’m sorry, I’m interrupting –” The plastic bag rustles again as Prompto tries to leave.

“Prom, wait,” says Gladio, reaching out and pulling Prompto tightly into what has now become a group hug between the three of them.

The bag drops to the floor, and no one cares enough to pick it back up.

*

That night, they all sleep together in the spare bed. Gladio is on Ignis’s right, arms wrapped around his middle; Prompto is to his left, head presently lying on his chest, their hands clasped further down. Ignis is keenly aware of the missing piece to their puzzle – the one who should be here, curled up like a child in the middle of all their love.

It hurts, a little. _This isn’t peace,_ a part of Ignis’s mind whispers.

Later in the night, when proper deep sleep has blanketed his whole body and begins to slowly pull him under, he feels a kiss on his forehead from one of his lovers.

No. This isn’t peace, but it’s close enough for now.

**Author's Note:**

> THIS TOOK SO MUCH WORK AND I AM SO PROUD OF IT.
> 
> Here is a link to the [art by the lovely @_shuoyue on twitter!!](https://twitter.com/_shuoyue/status/1212829538767527942) It seriously makes me so happy, she did such a good job ;-;
> 
> This fic is also inspired by [this lovely Steven Wilson song of the same title.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNTaFArEObU)
> 
> twitter: [@darlathecyborg](https://twitter.com/darlathecyborg)


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